The Constellations
Hercules and Cerberus
The hero holding a monster the sky later let go.
- Chart
- Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia
- Astronomer
- Johannes Hevelius
- Date
- 1690
- Held by
- e-rara.ch, Swiss rare-book libraries · via Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
Hercules from the Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia of Johannes Hevelius, Gdańsk, 1690, with a figure Hevelius invented. Hercules, the fifth largest of the modern constellations, was among Ptolemy's 48. In his hand Hevelius set Cerberus, a new constellation drawn as a three-headed snake, whose stars now belong to Hercules again. The hound of the underworld became here a serpent with three heads. In 1721 John Senex joined it to another lost figure, an apple branch, to make Cerberus et Ramus. Neither survived. On this plate the hero still holds his catch.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Hercules and Cerberus printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by e-rara.ch, Swiss rare-book libraries · via Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed pieces sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount (gold-ink editions on specialist press).
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our charts cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the gold figures, the tiny stars, the cartouches — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.
